High school students begin school year on Tetovo city square!

High school students from the Tetovo Gymnasium “Kiril Pejcinovic”, who learn in the Macedonia language, began their school year today, but their classes were held on the city square in Tetovo, and not in their classrooms. The students along with their teachers protested in this way, demanding from the Municipality and the competent institutions to build them a new school.

This is the position of some of the students with whom Gezim Osmani, a citizen journalist from Tetovo, spoke with today.

Around 250 students from this gymnasium go to school divided in several different facilities in poor conditions, separated from their classmates who learn in Albanian. This should be a temporary solution. According to the promises of the competent authorities, the students are waiting for the extension of the central facility of the gymnasium “Kiril Pejcinovic” to be built, though this problem has not been solved for three years now.

Ever since 2014, Mayor Teuta Arifi along with then Minister of Education, Abdulakim Ademi, have been promising the students and even started with activities on improving the situation and on solving this problem. However, everything has remained a promise to this day. Students are attending classes in the building of the Workers University, without appropriate conditions, with destroyed inventory and with irregular heating.

This is not the first protest of the Tetovo high school students from the beginning of the school year. Previously, they also protested in regards to the transportation, because as students have said, the Municipality has not paid for the transportation. Parents of the children have organized and paid with their own money for their children to attend the classes, even though they had been promised free transportation both from the Municipality and the Government.

Теxt and photo: Gezim Osmani